DATE: Wednesday, November 5, 1997           TAG: 9711050005

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: OPINION 

SOURCE: GLENN ALLEN SCOTT

                                            LENGTH:   77 lines

NORFOLK PUBLIC SCHOOLS PRE-KINDERGARTEN GIVES DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN A BETTER START

``Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?'' Professor Henry Higgins famously asked in the musical ``My Fair Lady.''

Higgins' point was that flower-girl Eliza Doolittle's cockney English doomed her to poverty.

Americans who speak other than mainstream American English are also likely to spend their lives at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. This is no less true of poor whites than poor blacks.

That some athletes and entertainers make it big in America despite their nonstandard speech does not disprove the rule. That the overwhelming percentage of the million-plus inhabitants of U.S. jails and prisons are illiterate or semiliterate proves it.

Public schools are blamed for many of our social ills. And it is true that millions of schoolchildren grow up unable to speak and write well. But most Americans are public-school graduates. The United States works very well on the whole, so many public schools clearly do much that is right.

Norview Elementary School on Chesapeake Boulevard in Norfolk is one such school. Like 28 other Norfolk elementary schools, Norview is a pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade school. Pre-kindergarten in Norfolk is a full-school-day program. Principal Jennifer Blonts, who has been with the Norfolk schools for 25 years, directs Norview Elementary.

Norview's 560 youngsters come from low-income neighborhoods. Eighty percent are African American. Most of the children live in single-parent (or single-grandparent) households.

They begin life behind the curve. U.S. News and World Report editor in chief Mortimer B. Zuckerman noted in a recent editorial that a child in a welfare household hears on average about 600 words an hour. A child in a low-income household in which someone is employed hears about 1,200 words an hour. A child in a middle-income family hears about 2,100 words an hour. Pre-kindergarten aims to bring poor children up to speed with middle-income children in language and other skills.

Norview Elementary pupils start their school day by reciting a series of statements. Anyone who thinks that public schools don't teach values might find the statements heartening. The children say: ``I believe I can be a good student. I believe that I can achieve. I believe that if I work hard, I will succeed. Therefore, I will work hard each day to do my best. I can learn. I will learn.''

Thirty-two of the Norview Elementary children are 4-year-olds, some of whom come to pre-kindergarten barely knowing their names. When they graduate to kindergarten, most will read a little, write a little and speak more standard American English than they otherwise would. The pre-kindergarteners are not criticized for using nonstandard American English; they are simply exposed intensively to mainstream American English and practice speaking it.

Norview Elementary's 4-year-olds manifestly like coming to school - attendance is not a problem. The children like and respect their teachers, Ann Kreft and Jerri Parker, who are specially trained and highly experienced.

In addition to speaking, writing and reading or being read to, the children do a lot of counting. They get time on a computer. They take field trips. They are taught to work and play cooperatively and to resolve conflicts peacefully. The school draws as many as possible of the children's parents or grandparents into the schooling process.

Most - not all - of the 4-year-olds in Norview Elementary's pre-kindergarten will achieve academically at grade level or above for years to come. The disadvantaged young who go through pre-kindergarten are less likely to get into trouble in school or with the law than those who don't. About 70 percent will graduate from high school. The graduation rate for disadvantaged youngsters who receive no pre-kindergarten training is 48 percent.

Norfolk has had pre-kindergarten programs for two decades. Encouraged by the General Assembly, pre-kindergartens are proliferating in Virginia. Because each of us is the primary agent of his own education, the earlier we are guided onto the path of lifelong learning, the better all around. That pre-kindergarten programs are becoming more common in the commonwealth is a welcome development. MEMO: Mr. Scott is associate editor of the editorial page of The

Virginian-Pilot.

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